The Framing of Harry Gleeson

Provides insights into Irish society and morals in the 1940s

In November 1940 the body of Moll McCarthy, an unmarried mother, was found in a field in Tipperary. She had been shot. The man who reported the discovery was neighbour Harry Gleeson. Although Harry had an alibi, he was swiftly convicted and hanged. The real culprits were local ex-IRA men. This travesty suited the parish priest, the Gardaí, and respectable families whose sons, brothers and husbands had fathered Moll’s seven children. The investigation was hijacked and the defence compromised. Neighbours and friends felt intimidated.

Since then, New Inn has kept its guilty secret. Moll’s daughter Mary, approaching death over fifty years later in a Dublin hospital, became upset and said to a nurse “I saw my own mother shot on the kitchen floor, and an innocent man died.” Somewhere in the grounds of Mountjoy Jail lies the body of Harry Gleeson. This is the story of how and why he was framed and who the guilty parties were.

Efforts to clear Gleeson’s name, culminated in a pardon in January 2015.